Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

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Strategic Planning for Species Conservation species and groups of species are being forced to move – locally upwards in elevation, regionally towards the poles, so that present protected areas are unlikely to be in the correct places for future species protection needs. Managing protected areas for sustainable provision of ecosystem services by particular species or species groups also envelops the activities of the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), which provides expertise on economic and social factors for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM), which provides expertise on integrated ecosystem approaches to management of natural and modified ecosystems. These and related issues are likely to come to the fore in many new ways in the near future with the recent advent of “Community Conserved Areas” (CCAs), which are “natural and modified ecosystems with significant biodiversity, Photo 10.1 Lake Elmenteita, Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya, with a flock of lesser flamingos (Phoenicopterus minor) © Karin Svadlenak-Gomez ecological and related cultural values, voluntarily conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities through customary laws or other effective means” (Kothari 2006). In CCAs ecosystem service provision and socio-economics play central roles. The integration of species-focused and area-based and/or ecosystem-based approaches is reflected within the present SCS initiative in a variety of ways. For example, conservation planning is not restricted to single species, but may refer to groups of species of similar phylogeny, geographic occurrence, or ecological function as appropriate. The necessity of area-based conservation for species has long been an integral part of the activities of SSC, though mainly in relation to the specific demands of the particular species, since protection 81
10. Integration of SCS with other conservation planning efforts of threatened populations requires protection of the habitat in which they occur. The threat criteria for species’ Red-Listing include “extent of occurrence” and “area of occupancy”, both explicitly reflecting spatial requirements important for continued persistence of species populations (IUCN 2001; IUCN 2008). The rapidly changing demands of practical biodiversity conservation in the 21 st century arising from global warming and other environmental change make it particularly important to continue efforts to increase the integration of species-focused conservation strategies with area-oriented and other conservation planning efforts. There have been recent major shifts of conservation emphases worldwide. Species-oriented conservation has changed from simply considering the number of species to instead recognising the wide variety of functional roles that species play within ecosystems. This realization has evolved to encompass the idea of ecosystem services – acknowledging the value that biodiversity brings to humans either directly (e.g., food and fibre production) or indirectly (e.g., pollination and erosion control). Many of these ideas are referred to in earlier chapters of this Handbook (e.g., see Chapter 6 on Vision and Goals). A similar situation has arisen for conservation centred on protected areas. During the 20 th century effort has gradually been shifting from an emphasis on designing protected areas and identifying the species within them, to much greater emphasis on effective management of protected areas for various purposes, including poverty reduction, and, more generally, for the benefit of people, as evidenced by the IUCN Protected Areas Management Categories 6 (IUCN 1994); “Parks are no longer allowed to simply “protect” but are charged with providing ecosystem services and facilitating poverty reduction via local development, ecotourism, and sustainable resource use” (Redford, Wilkie, and Fearn 2007). While parks’ core function remains the conservation of biodiversity, other roles may include the maintenance of ecosystem services, links to human livelihoods through the sustainable use of natural resources, and the preservation of cultural values. There is also increased emphasis on involving indigenous and local communities in protected area management, as important stakeholders in their own right (West and Brechin 1991; Stevens 1997; Posey 2000; Oviedo, Maffi, and Larsen 2000; Phillips 2002; Wilson 2003). Moreover, it is now recognised that biodiversity “�benefits people through more than just its contribution to material welfare and livelihoods. Biodiversity contributes to security, resiliency, social relations, health, and freedom of choices and actions” (MA 2005). The recent United Nations-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) distinguishes four broad groups of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting, with further categories and subcategories. The results of these trends in conservation have been hotly debated; for examples, see commentary by Haslett (2002), McCauley (2006), Armsworth et al. (2007), and Boitani et al. (2008). Nevertheless, many conservation practitioners recognise that management of landscapes to include the protection of ecosystem services can be a “value-added strategy” to support and complement existing conservation efforts based on species and their habitats, which may offer a potentially highly effective means of improving overall conservation success, both within and outside designated protected areas (Haslett, Berry, and Zobel 2007), and that the integration of different (but complementary) approaches can 6 There are currently six Protected Area Management Categories, ranging from strictly protected to managed mainly for sustainable use of natural ecosystems (see http://www.unep-wcmc.org/ protected_areas/categories/index.html accessed 24 July 2008). 82
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Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

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